Not a Single Drop of Magic

It all started with Markella. Markella didn't belong.

Her parents didn't like to talk about it, but Markella wasn't from Innsdale. And she wasn't from Galabrook across the waters, or Pynfern past the great, green forest. Rightfully telling, no one actually knew where Markella came from, except that a woman was passing through Innsdale and she gave birth and she died. They never knew the name of Markella's mother. She was fair-skinned and wild-eyed, sweaty and lost. Neren Goodman at the Wally Wog Tavern tried to help her. He summoned a winter fairy who swirled around and around the young woman, but her magicks could not penetrate whatever sickness existed. The child was delivered. The woman died in a strange land.

Oluo and Valla adopted the baby. They had made countless entreaties to the Goddess Mother and been told time and time again, "It is not to be." Motherless, fatherless children were rare in Innsdale. They jumped at the chance to raise the child.

And right away it was clear what a mistake this had been.

At six months, they brought the girl - now named Markella after a cherished aunt - down to the Duney River, to lay her in the water, and let the current show her path. This form of water divination was as old as Innsdale, and as reliable as the sun itself. Old Pocca, the River Reader, was there as well, watching the curve of the water with her keen eyes. They say a child's story reveals itself in the bend of the waves and the million tiny ripples that surround their body. But it did not require an experienced River Reader to see the heart of Markella's story.

The girl sank. Immediately.

Oluo dove in and retrieved her. Pocca shook her wispy, white head.

"There is not a drop of magic in this girl," she said. "Not a single drop."

All wizards are stubborn, however. And all witches are proud. Oluo and Valla believed in their love, and they believed in their skill.

Nothing came easily to Markella. In most instances, nothing came at all. At eight, they gave her her first wand. It broke, and the splinter lodged itself in her hand. As she wailed in agony, Oluo and Valla summoned fairy after imp after spirit, directing them to heal the child. But they each refused. Helpless, Oluo and Valla could only watch their child struggle.

Markella did not struggle long.

You see, the remarkable thing about Markella was this - she recognized early on that her problems were her own; that no matter how much Oluo and Valla loved her, they could almost never help her.

She would have to help herself. So she did.

Once calm, she regarded the splintered bit of wand sticking out of her palm. "Something sharp," she muttered. "Thin and strong... Hmmm."

As Oluo and Valla watched, the girl retreated into their home and began to dig through their possessions. In her mother's pot of loose charms, she found what she needed - two paper-thin leaves of copper. She used the slips of metal to clamp the splinter and pull it free.

Oluo and Valla were hard-pressed to explain what they had seen.

"And you...feel better now?" said Oluo.

"Perfectly," said Markella. "I'm sorry about the wand."

"Don't be," said Valla, still wondering at the child. "I don't think wands suit you, is all."

Markella's face fell. "Don't say that! Please mother, don't say that! What will I do if I can't do magic?"

Valla shushed her daughter and patted her head, taking her to the kitchen for tea. She never answered the question, though, because she had no answer. What would become of a witch who could do no magic?

Many things, it turned out. Many wonderful, strange things.

The people of Innsdale were kind to Markella, in a way, but it would be wrong to say they loved her as their own. They did not. She did not make sense to them. None of it made sense to them. Markella's birth mother's body had lingered a long time in the physical world in a way that made them all uncomfortable. Normally, when a person died in Innsdale, their body disintegrated into smoke and stars, claimed by the spirits that guard the doorway into the Night Realm. Markella's mother had to be buried in the earth to prevent carrion beasts from gathering.

So the continuing stories of Markella's strangeness did nothing to win her favor. Fortunately, Markella never seemed to mind. She was too busy trying to find her place. And when no place could be found, she switched tactics and built a place.

She could not command the spirits of the trees or beckon the fire imps to her charge. So she taught herself how to make axes, how to chop down trees by hand, to gather kindling, to build fires.

For the citizens of Innsdale, it was a fascinating thing to watch, but an abhorrent waste of time. They could all - even the youngest mageling - conjure the necessary components for a fire. After a time they began to treat Markella as if she were a trained animal. Impressive and resourceful, but still an animal.

Markella pressed forward. She gathered flowers, herbs, wild grasses, and strange spores. She tested them. Cataloged them. Cultivated them. When she became ill, she would boil water and harvest certain herbs, strain the broth, and sit in the sunlight, drinking her special teas. They worked, though others would scoff at the labor.

By the time she was full grown, she had built her own house. Oluo and Valla marveled at her ingenuity. The rest felt as though they were somehow being mocked.

And one day, a winter fairy died.

A witch named Yury had summoned the fairy to cure a bad cough. The winter fairy had whipped around and around the woman's head, and then... simply dropped to the ground. Dead. Its body dissolved.

Hardly anyone believed the story and Yury would have had to live as a liar if that had been the end of it. But a fire imp died. It fell over backwards into a hearth, eaten by the very flames it had been summoned to create.

The witches and wizards of Innsdale grew cautious. Some grew paranoid.

"It's her," said a wizard at the Wally Wog Tavern. "She doesn't belong and it's all going to ruin because of it."

But it wasn't just Innsdale. It was Galabrook and Pynfern and everywhere that could be reached. The fairies were dying. The imps were dying. The spirits were becoming distant and recalcitrant.

Old Pocca developed a fever, but no one could manage to summon any help.

Markella didn't wait to be asked. She brewed her herbs and sat with the old woman for four days. Pocca recovered.

Magic never did.

There were some, even to the ends of their days, who still blamed Markella. They claimed she had brought the disease that killed the magical creatures. She had ended magic in Innsdale and the surrounding valley. And perhaps she had. Who could ever know?

Most though, praised her name and knelt to learn at her feet. She taught them what she knew and never thought less of them for their struggles and inabilities. In time, Innsdale became a very different place. But so did the world.